Deus Ex Machina
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Lee, sent on a mission of unknown length which cannot be avoided, sends the man she once thought was her father to train Obito in her place. side fic of "Finishing the Hat"


**Author's Note: A few notes here. First, this is a side fic of "Finishing the Hat" and if you haven't read that you'll be very confused. Second, this is clearly NOT CANON for so many reasons.**

* * *

It was relatively early in Obito's apprenticeship that it happened, in the days before he'd even managed to get used to Eru Lee, let alone approach understanding her. Those were the days in which he still jumped at shadows let alone caves, when he'd wake up with the sound of Madara's rasping laughter echoing through his head, heart pounding and having to remind himself over and over again that he lived in the Hatake compound these days.

He imagined, that if it had promised anything less than a catastrophic emergency the likes of which the elemental nations hadn't been confronted with since Kaguya, Lee wouldn't have gone. More, if it had been only a few months later, she probably would have taken him with her no matter how qualified Minato-sensei felt he wasn't for that kind of mission.

For better or worse though, it was the early days of Obito's training with her. The days where, he realized in retrospect, she was subtly finding and testing his limits as well as easing him back into shinobi life. The fourteen-year-old Obito had yet to step foot out of the village on any kind of mission, and even Lee, who was fond of pushing people past their limits, would not take him any further than the land of fire on that first run.

More, it was a mission of undetermined length in Lee's home dimension, which given the consequences and involved parties, she was not given the option of refusing. It might only be a few days, it might stretch to months if not years, and Minato-sensei trusted no one but Lee to journey out and do it.

That, at least, was the impression Obito had been left with.

"Aliens are involved, of course," Lee said when she presented it to him.

She'd sat him down at her table, as always with a pot of tea, and so casually passed her mission scroll to him where he read through it ferociously with both eyes (the green one so new back then).

"Not Otsutsuki Kaguya's ilk," she said as Obito looked up with an alarmed and panicked expression, "As far as I understand it, five-hundred-years ago she committed familicide on a mass scale. Massacred the entire Otsutsuki clan with only herself as its survivor and heir. Kaguya, her sons the sage and his brother, and their scattered descendants are all that remained of them."

Lest Obito ever forget where exactly the Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Senju had come from.

"Then who?"

"It's a big universe out there," Lee said with a small shrug, "With time-space jutsus it suddenly seems much smaller."

She sipped her tea, pausing as he waited in tense silence, for her to answer. Then, much too calmly, she replied "To answer your question, as far as _England_ has told us from what they've managed to piece together from what the _Americans_ have told them who found out by monitoring their civilian populations, it appears that _Norse_ space _Viking_ gods have made themselves a jinchuuriki of sorts out of astrophysicist Foster Jane, kidnapped her into another dimension, at the eve of what, with enough firepower, could very well be the end of all worlds as we know it. Including, of course, us."

Obito laughed, he couldn't help it, the mad and desperate sound bubbled out of him.

"I know," Lee said with a fond smile, "It's times like this, as Minato likes to say, that he remembers why he has me on payroll."

Because of course, for something like that, Lee was the only person in the world they were going to send.

"Do you know how long—"

"If all goes well, a few days, maybe a week," Lee said, "If things blow up in my face but not to the point that we all die, well, that could take longer."

Longer, she had given him no time limit on that longer, and from the way she was looking Lee was preparing herself for that to be a very long time.

She didn't wait for him to ask what he should be doing in the meantime, a week or a few days he could keep himself occupied, although it dawned on him then that he hadn't needed to so far. Lee had been very grounded within the village since Obito's return and had turned most of her attention towards his training. Part of this was the natural state of affairs, Lee was much too powerful for anything below an A-rank mission, send her outside of the land of fire's borders and foreign villages started getting antsy. Still, there were always the usual missions to England she could have taken and some hodgepodge of missions she could take in the elemental nations. However, he didn't know it at the time, but in those first few months Lee had been declining missions.

Until, of course, she couldn't.

"In the meantime, when I'm off to parts unknown, I'm passing you off to an acquaintance of mine," Lee said, and then looking at him noted, "And if he tries to refuse, remind him that he owes me more than he can possibly repay and that the very least he can do is oversee your katas."

"An acquaintance?" Obito asked blinking, wondering who the hell that could be and why she hadn't just dropped a name. If she'd meant Hatake Sakumo she would have said as much, same with Jiraiya or Uzumaki Kushina, and other than those three Obito couldn't really think of anyone who had the time or inclination to conduct his training.

Even they didn't really have the time for it.

Hatake Sakumo was practically retired, but just practically, ANBU still had a tendency to call him in on a moment's notice, however much that irked Kakashi. Jiraiya had continued his wanderings across the elemental nations, part author and part spy master, and was rarely sitting around in Konoha. Uzumaki was busy not simply being a jonin but also practically raising a less than year-old son by herself while Minato-sensei wore the hat.

No one had time to stick around training somebody else's apprentice.

"Well, he technically is family, but we've never agreed on precisely where he sits on the Eru family tree," Lee said, making Obito even more alarmed, because as far as Minato-sensei had told him Lee didn't have any true family.

Her clan had been wiped out in England and she'd abandoned her civilian relatives. Lee was always spoken of and thought of as an orphan descendant and de facto head of a powerful foreign clan.

"I always thought he was my father, but he and the rest of the world are insistent on Potter James being my progenitor, and in retrospect he's likely biologically a brother of sorts," Lee said, and after a moment of pondering Obito's confused expression, she said, "I think you'll like him."

"You have a brother?" Obito asked.

How someone could mix up their father with a brother was beyond Obito, unless there was some crazy age difference between them, but even then it stretched imagination. Of course, Obito thought remembering some of Lee's earlier words to him at the time, when one was on the family tree of a god then maybe things did get damn bizarre.

"Of sorts," Lee said, before clarifying, "He comes from a dimension parallel to my _England_. Once, a very long time ago, he was Potter Harry where I was Potter Eleanor. The difference being that he stayed Potter Harry for as long as he could where I abandoned that at the first opportunity to become Eru Lee."

At seeing Obito's confused expression, she clarified with a smile, "He stayed in _England_ and attended _Hogwarts_ like a good citizen. I had to be pulled back kicking and screaming by a magical cup."

There was a lot Obito could say to that, but dumbass that he was, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "Then what the hell would he know about training shinobi?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Lee admitted, rubbing the back of her head and leaving it unspoken that this strange almost brother of hers was her last resort, "However, he always has some interesting insight, and I think you'll learn more than you're expecting to."

And that was all Obito was left with, the conversation soon turned to other things, and within the hour she was packed and leaving for her home dimension and whatever intergalactic dumpster fire awaited her there.

And the man, in question, was on the doorstep of the Hatake compound the next morning.

* * *

It wasn't an unreasonable time of the day, which was probably why Obito had been the one to answer the door. Kakashi was on another one of his ANBU death missions again, sure to return with half the chakra he started with and a few new scars to decorate his torso. Sakumo, similarly, had been called in to oversee something involving ANBU training and vetting, which left Obito alone in the house to cook himself breakfast and eventually see to the stranger on the doorstep.

It was probably for the best anyway. Food wise neither Sakumo nor Kakashi had the ability or slightest inclination to cook. Which, given Lee was pants at it, meant that if Obito wanted to live off of anything other than ramen and protein bars he had to start making it himself.

Also, staring at Lee's chosen replacement at the front of the gate, he wasn't sure how Kakashi or Sakumo might have reacted.

The family resemblance, Obito thought at the time, was uncanny. His hair was more reminiscent of the Uchiha due to its coloring, but it was hers in texture, thick curls made of coarse strands of hair that stuck out in all directions. His skin color, his nose, and his eyes especially all matched hers.

Even though he was taller, even though he didn't look like what Obito would have pictured a male Lee looking like, you could tell at even a glance they were very closely related. He wasn't dressed as a shinobi or even any kind of civilian familiar to Obito. He wore several layers of robes over a set of pants tucked into dark boots, but what was more eye-catching was that every single piece of it was black, or else a color so dark it might as well be black. Combined with his unnaturally pale skin, even at noon, it made him seem more like a spirit than a human being.

"Uchiha Obito?" he asked, and his voice didn't sound like Lee's, not truly, but there was some quality to it that again reminded Obito inexplicably of her.

"Hari, right?" he asked in turn, a forcing a smile on his face. Every once in a while, with Lee, he forgot how downright strange she was. She dressed like a jonin, talked like one, and her alien or else godlike nature only appeared in flashes. There was no forgetting it with this guy.

The man smiled, or tried to, but by the look on his face he couldn't quite remember how to go about it. The best he could manage was a slight twitch of his lips, "She told you that, did she?"

"Well, she said you're sort of her brother and an acquaintance," Obito said, suddenly wishing Lee had had a bit more time to fill him in on some of the details. No, what he really almost wished was that she'd just gone ahead and left him to his own devices. Obito could keep himself busy for a week, he wasn't that useless or needy.

The man thought about it for a few moments, and then gave another one of those smiles that was trying a little too hard and falling a little too flat, "I suppose that's not wrong. May I come in?"

Obito glanced behind him at the empty compound, the compound that was likely to remain empty for the day if not longer, and then back at his technically invited guest. He knew that he lived here now, had had constant reassurances from Kakashi and his father that this was a home for him and he wasn't a guest, but he didn't…

He didn't like the idea of inviting people in, especially people they didn't know themselves.

"It's a nice day," Obito said instead, glancing at the sky, "Let's talk outside."

The man was either too polite or oblivious to note out loud what Obito was doing but instead politely inclined his head, watched as Obito locked up the gate and reset the seals, and then walked alongside him as Obito instinctively made his way towards the training fields.

"So, if you're shishou's brother," Obito asked as they set off, "Then where have you been all this time?"

"Elsewhere," the man answered, great he was going to be one of those infuriatingly vague types, "Not in the elemental nations."

"So, _England_ then?" Obito asked, wondering why the man was beating around the bush so much if that was the answer. Maybe he thought Obito wasn't in the know, but the existence of England and Scotland was hardly a secret, and if it was then it certainly wasn't well kept.

He laughed, a startled and surprised noise, one that Obito suspected he hadn't made for a long time, "Not for a very long time. No, I was… not in a place so easily reached."

"A place you're not going to name for me, are you?" Obito finally noted.

This time the man did manage a real smile, an amused thing that did anything but take Obito seriously, "Well, I suppose you might say I was in the pure world."

"You were dead then," Obito put together, brows furrowed in confusion, wondering if that meant Lee had brought him back from the dead without even telling Obito. Granted, he didn't know all of Lee's abilities and what she considered worthy of mention or not, but casually bringing this guy back from the dead just to babysit Obito didn't sit right with him.

"No, I don't… I'm afraid I don't do that," the man said, "I just happened to be beyond the world of the living."

"You don't what," Obito asked, eyebrows raising steadily higher, stretching the scarred half of his face, "Die?"

"No," the man answered far too easily, "I don't die."

"You don't die?" Obito asked slowly, beginning to doubt Lee-shishou's sanity once again for bringing someone like this inside the village to train him, "As in you've given it a few tries, and it just didn't work out for you?"

How had she managed that anyway? How had someone like this, who wreaked of chakra, made it past customs so quickly if he hadn't already been in the village? And given permission to train Obito?

Why did he have the sudden nauseating feeling that Lee had not checked this with authorities and the man had somehow just managed to waltz into the village?

"Yes," the man said, again, far too easily considering the words that exited his mouth, "A few others have tried along the way as well."

Finally, it was the man's turn to give Obito a very funny look, as he asked, "Did Lee not tell you?"

Why did Obito not like that question, "Tell me what?"

"That I was a Shinigami."

Obito's silence spoke volumes. The man stared for a moment, shrugged in a way that was far too reminiscent of Lee, and said to himself as he continued walking, "I knew she was going to leave something dreadfully important out."

* * *

A Shinigami, not the Shinigami, that apparently was an important distinction. As far as the man, Hari, Harry, Death, whatever the hell he was calling himself today, was concerned Lee was the official Shinigami of Konoha as well as her own version of Scotland and England. His domain, apparently, had self-destructed some time ago leaving him without any jurisdiction whatsoever.

You couldn't, after all, guide and judge the souls of the dead if everyone was already dead.

Not that the man had outright said every living being from his own home dimension was dead, however, he'd bloody well implied it.

More, for someone who claimed to be a god of death, the man was not nearly as intimidating as Obito would have expected. After walking around town, the man somehow not getting double takes for reasons Obito could only blame on some genjutsu strong enough to thwart even your average sharingan, they'd returned to the Hatake compound for afternoon tea and snacks and to discuss just what the hell they'd be doing until Lee managed to get her ass back to Konoha.

The man though was… Well, civilian was the wrong word, he wasn't, but anyone who liked their afternoon tea this much was not matching the amount of chakra he was leaking.

"So, what's a god of death going to teach someone like me anyway?" Obito asked.

The man shrugged, "Lee wasn't very clear, just clear that I owed her more than a week of looking out for you. She mentioned something about katas?"

"Do you even know what a kata is?" Obito asked.

"Well, I'm familiar with the concept."

Yeah, Obito bet he was.

"Look," Obito said, rubbing a hand through his hair with a sigh, deciding to cut straight to the point, "Not that I don't appreciate you checking in on shishou's behalf, here, but I'm not five. If you're just here to make sure I don't do something stupid then you might as well just head back to… the pure world or wherever you came from. Especially since I'm really starting to doubt you have any kind of permission to be here right now."

The man just looked at Obito, not making any sign of teleporting back from whence he came, then noted, "Lee also suggest that I talk to you about some things."

"Talk?" Obito blurted, "What the hell would we have to talk about?"

"I didn't know, that's why I didn't bring it up," the man responded, pouring himself more tea, waiting patiently for it to cool as he met Obito's gaze.

Talk? He wished shishou was here, was within writing or calling distance, because what the hell was that supposed to mean? Obito hardly talked to anyone, not about the things Lee would think he'd need to talk about. He didn't talk to Minato-sensei or Rin, why the hell would he start talking to complete strangers?

"You know, I was surprised Lee came to see me," the man said quietly, "We haven't spoken in years."

The man didn't wait for Obito to ask, instead, one finger circling the rim of his cup, explained with a nostalgic smile, "We had a falling out, years ago, when your third shinobi war started in earnest. That was the last time I ever saw her; she was still a girl then…"

Obito didn't want to ask, wasn't sure he had any right to, and yet had the feeling that he should and more that this was part of the reason Lee had called this man in, "What was it about?"

The man looked at Obito, sighed, and then stated, "I felt she had no business partaking in this mortal war of yours."

It must have been written on Obito's face then, the cold shock at what this man had suggested, the idea that it had been suggested in the first place. That Eru Lee abandon the village in the midst of the third war and become a missing nin.

What would the war have been without her? Obito didn't know, he only knew that she had almost singlehandedly kept Kumo and Kiri off their backs. Certainly, without her, the death toll would have been higher. Without her, Obito thought grimly, Obito himself would have been included in that death toll if not worse.

"You know we don't just get to opt out of wars, don't you?" Obito asked but the man just smiled.

"Lee isn't like you, that, at least, I'm sure she's told you," the man said, "Granted, she probably said it in the most casual and least alarming manner she could. She said it just so that later, when you find out, she could say that she had told you once at four in the morning when you could barely think straight. She told you, so that you wouldn't know what it meant, but she said it just the same. I'm sure she did."

It had been five am, Obito thought darkly, around five am a few months ago that Lee had woken him up in the middle of the night to say nothing more than, "I'm a god and the Shinigami." It had never been brought up since, not until now.

"Gods have no business in mortal affairs," the man continued, "Not like that, because it never ends well."

"How was it supposed to end, then?" Obito asked, gripping the tea in his hands tightly.

"It did end," the man said, not even blinking at Obito's change in tone or the rising killing intent, "That she contacted me at all means she's learned something, conceded at least some small defeat. The village doesn't make much use of her anymore, does it? And this mission she's on, it's only because there truly is no other choice."

The man then looked out the window, "I don't see the dead walking the streets, or her face on that mountain, or anything you might expect if a known god were left as a resource to a village of mercenaries. She is not all she could be, and I am certain she knows it."

"And that's a good thing?" Obito asked, giving out a small bitter laugh, because he didn't know exactly why but something about all of this infuriated him. The idea that Lee… That Lee had given up, in some way, had chosen to take a step or two back from the village because it made people more comfortable.

Except she had, hadn't she?

Minato-sensei had married Uzumaki Kushina, she'd moved out of her all but second home in the Hatake compound ages ago for all they kept a room for her, and instead of sending her into ANBU or on any sort of mission they stuck her with him.

No, no he didn't believe that.

"You're wrong," Obito said, "Raising people from the dead, flipping the village upside down, maybe that's your idea of doing something but shishou's done better than that. Because she came for me, when I was considered dead for months, she came and searched through Lightning's mountains for what was supposed to only be a corpse. Maybe you've given up on whatever village you came from, let them do what they wanted, but I know for a fact that Eru Lee hasn't."

No, more than that, she'd done more than that and Obito had glimpsed it already. Minato-sensei, that night Naruto was born, in a world that wasn't this one. Somehow, in some impossible way, Lee had bargained with the yondaime hokage Namikaze Minato to ensure that day never came to pass.

With more reckless burning passion than Obito had felt in months, since before the Kannabi Bridge, he slammed his tea cup down on the table and accused, "If you think she should become lazy, apathetic, asshole of a nuke nin because it makes you feel better then you should get the hell out of my village before I kick your face in!"

The man blinked once, twice, and with mortification Obito realized just what he'd said and just who he'd said it to. If anyone thought that Obito might have come out of that cave smarter or at least a bit more cautious, apparently, they were dead wrong.

Then the man laughed, threw his head back and laughed like a real person would laugh, like Kakashi always laughed at jokes that weren't even funny.

Obito felt like his face was on fire.

Finally, after the man managed to quiet down, he said, "You know, I think I know why she sent me here?"

"And why's that?" Obito asked moodily, wishing a hole could just swallow him up and eat him already.

"I think, Uchiha Obito, that it wasn't so much me who was supposed to talk to you, but instead you who was supposed to talk to me."

The man smiled, that stupid dopey smile that Lee often wore herself, and Obito couldn't help but blurt out his thoughts once again, "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

* * *

A week later, true to her word, a very worn and exhausted looking Eru Lee returned through the gates where Obito, prompted by Death, had been waiting for her.

"So, I take it we're not getting invaded by aliens?" Obito asked with a grin as she numbly recited her number to the guard at the gate and began her automatic trek for debriefing directly to Minato-sensei.

Lee just grunted in response, then, after a significant pause stated, "Well, it depends if Laufeyson Loki is as lazy a kage as I think he's going to be. If he just sits on his ass and eats grapes while watching plays of his own sacrifice and demise, then I think we should be good for a while. We better be goddamn good for a while, that's all I have to say about it."

"Laufeyson Loki?" Obito asked.

Lee stopped in the middle of the street, turned to look at him, and said in complete seriousness, "Obito, you do not want to know the ridiculous political bullshit I just had to go through. Suffice to say, I'm glad I immigrated to Konoha and not _Asgard_. I am very very very glad I did not immigrate to _Asgard_."

She shuddered, started walking again, and asked, "And how was my old man? Did he turn out to be at least somewhat useful in my absence?"

Obito thought it over, mulled over the strange man that Lee had invited into Obito's life, and stated, "We had an interesting talk."

* * *

**Author's Note: Ah, fourteen-year-old Obito, still angsty as hell but not quite grown out of his habit of blurting stupid things. Written for the 800th review of "Finishing the Hat", which I double booked, by shadowclonier who asked for a fic in which Lee takes a week to month long hiatus and asks Death to fill in training Obito for her. **

**As usual, I choose to incorporate elements of the MCU on the side to give Lee important shit to do off-screen. How Lee trying to salvage Thor the Dark World ended up, well that I leave to your imagination.**

**Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Naruto, or Thor the Dark World.**


End file.
